


I'll dress you all

by obsessivewriter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Related, Canonical Era, Class Differences, Clothed Sex, Corsetry, Doggy Style, F/M, Gendrya - Freeform, Idiots in Love, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, Sex, Table Sex, Unprotected Sex, corsetkink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:53:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26947006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivewriter/pseuds/obsessivewriter
Summary: Gendry discovers that he loves to lace Arya's stays after their trysts in the room at the back of his smithy in the Red Keep, until one day, Arya tells him she has to keep her clothes on since Septa Mordane has started noticing at night that the laces are not as she tied them in the morning.Day 11 of Gendrya Kinktober 2020, prompt: "From behind / clothes on"
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 166
Kudos: 421
Collections: Gendrya Kinktober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quick disclaimer: They are older than in the books/series, and Gendry is an acknowledged bastard of Robert Baratheon, who works in the forge inside the Red Keep. Sansa is not marrying Joffrey, but they are both there accompanying Ned. Nymeria is back in Winterfell and the queen, may or may not be Cersei, you choose.
> 
> Inspiration for this fic came from this Tumblr post: https://obsessivewriter.tumblr.com/post/630356729157320704/blood-head-drownedinlight
> 
> And also, this is the fic that made me fall down the rabbit hole of watching Youtube videos about stays construction and lacing. I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

[ ](https://imgur.com/r1J7Uqm)

Arya never asked Gendry to help her dress.

It was something that he started doing all on his own since the second time they coupled, the night she came to his bed still dressed in her finest feast gown instead of the simple clothes she wore before, the same ones that steered him to think her just another castle servant. 

The feast had been called by King Robert, adamant about having the known bastards he kept at the castle be introduced to Ned Stark, his new Lord Hand. The feast had happened a little over a moonturn since Lord Stark and his daughters had arrived, only because the Northern man had been dead against having a feast in his honor. 

The king got it his way in the end, and he introduced Gendry with a boastful _'Doesn't the lad look just like me in my prime, Ned?'_

Gendry had been horrified, after bowing to the best friend of the fat king who had sired him but couldn't come to consider as a father, to discover that the same girl he had just bedded the night before was none other than one of the daughters of the Lord Hand.

Little did King Robert know that Gendry's gobsmacked face was not because he was meeting the daughters of the Warden of the North for the first time, but because the younger one was the girl whose maidenhead he had taken in the cot in the back of the castle smithy just the night before. Later that night, when Arya made her way to him, still in her delicate silk gown, he had been furious because she had let him dishonor her, believing her to be only a scullery maid instead of a highborn lady.

Arya called him stupid for thinking there was any difference between fucking a lord's daughter and a kitchen servant, and even more for believing there was any dishonor in what they had done in his narrow bed. Though, Gendry kept to himself how he had gone to Master Mott that very morning to tell him he intended to ask his sweetheart to marry him. 

Gendry had tried to refuse her profusely as Arya did her best to convince him, reminding him that the deed was done, and there was no way to unring that bell. Still, he was somewhat reluctant to touch her after knowing she was a highborn lady. Arya tried then to undress seductively to entice him, but pulling at her laces had only made the bows turn into knots, and the movements she had planned as tempting had turned frazzled when she fought with her elaborate gown and intricate underclothes. 

Gendry chuckled loudly then, and Arya wanted to punch him. Yet, in the end, even if it was awkwardness instead of allure what had helped her achieve her goal, she was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth when Gendry pulled her hard by the waist to kiss her so fervently she went weak at the knees.

After that, Arya had continued to come to his bed, every chance she had to sneak away. If she managed to escape her septa's vigilant eye at night, she would show up wearing only her nightshirt over the leather breeches and a simple cloak she had nicked from one of the page boys. But Septa Mordane had become harder to foil, and Arya had been forced to meet him in the middle of the day, after her embroidering lessons. The queen had insisted that she dressed appropriately in fine gowns to join the princess and the rest of the high ladies in the sewing room. 

And so, Gendry had made a habit of meticulously dressing her, soon becoming deft in the intricate stylings of highborn ladies. 

"I should worry about how much you seem to enjoy dressing me," Arya would say.

"After what we just did, the least I can do is take care of my—"Gendry stopped himself abruptly when he heard what he was saying.

"Your woman?" Arya asked, turning her head enough to see him out of the corner of her eye.

"Shut up," he replied, dipping his head to kiss her neck, to avoid her seeing the crimson on his cheeks.

* * *

Gendry was sure there was a stupid smile plastered on his face, after loving Arya in his little room at the back of the smithy, closed for the afternoon to avoid anyone finding them together. It was a good thing that he had to lace her from behind every time, giving him ample time to school his face before she could see it and make fun of him for looking so stupidly in love.

Like every other time, he stood behind her and helped her dress, meticulously lacing her stays over her shift and petticoat. The first time he had done it, Arya's heart raced at the gentleness of his hands, so different from the way Septa Mordane was wont to yank at her while helping her dress. Arya felt herself getting wet anew like he hadn't made herself peak just a few moments before. His hand slid up slowly over the stiffness of the boning of the garment over her abdomen until it came to cradle her teat over the silk cup, making sure it wasn't too tight. With every new encounter, Gendry learned a new secret of that world reserved just for highborn women. He learned that the laces had to be tied in a spiral fashion and that the garment's purpose was not constricting Arya's body but giving support to her teats and her spine. Gendry found it not too different from armor, a utilitarian object that could be beautiful in itself. He liked lacing it on Arya, making sure it hugged her just right, and he fooled himself by thinking that if his hands were the ones to choose the right squeeze, she would think of the tightness of his embrace throughout the rest of her day.

Gendry tied the tiny ribbons on the straps of the stays over the swell of her breasts, and then, helped her step in the center of the unfastened gown, which he would then lift over her, dropping a kiss on the crook of her neck, just before tying her yellow silk dress.

It had become a ritual. 

Arya would disrobe hastily, pulling at the laces, not just loosening them but making them slip out of the eyelets. Gendry would chastise her for her carelessness in between kisses, pretending that it mattered, but Arya knew that it wasn't just her eagerness and lack of care. Instead, it was the realization that the more she pulled her intricate clothing apart, Gendry would have to spend longer gently touching her as he helped her dress.

Every time, just as he finished, she'd feel soaked and almost coaxed him into doing it all over again, but time stolen for their trysts was always too short. It was a beautiful, vicious cycle, one that enthralled them enough from overthinking that there was no possible future for them. 

* * *

Gendry was surprised that mid-morning when he heard Arya pacing around in the room at the back of the smithy, letting him know she had made her way there. He closed the place like he did every time she arrived, but instead of finding her already yanking at her clothes, she stood unmoving in front of him. Gendry approached and kissed her softly at first, but he soon got impatient and bit her lower lip. Still, Arya did not attempt to disrobe, and Gendry wondered if it was her way to let him know she wanted him to be the one to undress her that time. 

As his hand came to the back of her dress and started untying, she pulled away from him. 

"Don't."

His heart sunk, thinking she was only there to tell him that she had finally come to her senses, and she would never let him touch her again. His face must have betrayed him, for she was quick to dispel his fears.

"Septa Mordane noticed that the bows were different last week."

"Huh?"

"On my stays. When she helped me change at night, she mentioned that my laces were less tight, and there were simple bows when she double-knotted them in the morning."

The relief that had come to him when she let him know that she still wanted him quickly faded, "What did you say to her?"

"Oh, just that she laces me too tight, and I felt dizzy, so I had to loosen them myself, and then I asked a castle maid to help me."

"Did she buy it?" Gendry asked, with his hands on the stiff sides of her bodice.

"I don't know."

"Is that why you won't take your clothes off?"

"That, and the fact my lady mother has arrived, and she will be the one helping Sansa, and I get ready for bed. I may have been able to convince Septa Mordane, but there is no way I can convince my mother."

His hands fell from the well-structured bodice of her gown at the mention of her mother.

"We're done here then," Gendry declared gloomily, rubbing the back of his neck, hoping his disillusion didn't show in his tone.

"No, stupid," Arya corrected him, with her hands climbing up under his shirt to touch his firm torso. "It just means that other than my smallclothes, I have to keep everything on while you fuck me."

The way such lewd words came out of her dainty mouth always got Gendry going, _'it makes you stupid,'_ the voice in his head corrected him, but by then, he had lost all common sense, and he was drawing her to him, and kissing her with fervor.

"How are we going to do this without taking off my clothes?" Arya asked in between kisses.

Gendry pulled away, and Arya giggled at the twinkle in his eye as he walked her back until she could feel the table in the room that he kept for sketching and eating his meals on his own behind her. 

He kissed her hard one more time, before turning her around with his hands on her hips, and then, slowly guiding her to support herself with her palms on the table. Her heart was thumping loudly, making her breathing labored within the constraints of her stays, while Gendry's hands, slowly sliding down over the silk of her skirts, gave her a thrill. When he reached the hems, his fingers sneaked under it, and they retraced their steps, taking his time to painstakingly caress the velvety skin of the back of her legs. Once he reached her smallclothes, Gendry yanked them down in sharp contrast with his previous gentleness. Arya stepped out of the delicate garment, and Gendry kicked them behind him, before hiking up her skirts and bunching them at her waist. 

The soft breeze on her nakedness made her shudder, and she felt a small eternity pass while she stood there, bent over the table, with her bare backside on display and still wearing the tall riding boots she wore daily under her gowns. 

She turned to look for Gendry, and the sight of him, desperately trying to untie himself, made her nervousness dissipate, and once more, she was the one in control, knowing she affected him just as much as he did her. 

"Trouble unlacing your breeches with those big stupid blacksmith fingers of yours?"

Gendry looked up at her words, and his shakiness stilled, seeing the teasing look on her face, with one dark eyebrow arched high. 

"You don't seem to think my big blacksmith fingers are stupid when there on you… or in you," he said, finally yanking his breeches down and hugging her from behind, letting her feel just how hard she had already made him.

Arya laughed, indeed at his poor attempt at sounding commanding, but Gendry knew that hearing her laugh was almost as enticing as seeing her bare and ready for him. He had to rub himself against her behind, turning her laughter into a tantalizing little moan as his boot nudged the inside of her foot to get her to widen her stance. 

His right hand went to her front, and it set on her midsection, feeling the hardness of the busk underneath. His chest soared, knowing that inside its tight sheath was the metal busk that he had forged for her. Arya had taught him about them when he asked, curious about the hard piece inserted in the narrow pocket and tied with ribbons, in between Arya's breast and the top of her mound. Arya had shown him the carved piece of wood and told him it was meant to keep her bosom up and her belly flat. Gendry found it fascinating, as he turned it in his hand, noticing the ornate carvings on it.

"Why would it matter that it is pretty if no one is meant to see it?"

"It matters to me, and it is enough that I know," Arya had replied, and Gendry felt the challenge in his gut. 

Through the silkiness of her gown, Gendry could feel the result of his labor, as he remembered the moment he had decided to make it. He smiled against her hair, knowing that under all her finery, the metal piece adorned with the motifs of direwolves and weirwood trees he had engraved painstakingly, rested inside the most intimate of her garments, encased in silk and against her skin. 

When Gendry kept his hand on her front, Arya knew he felt the metal busk he had made for her. Her eyes had welled up the afternoon that he gave it to her, while she was still naked on top of him on his narrow bed. It was thrilling to walk around the Red Keep, among inane lords and ladies, knowing that under her clothes, the exquisite piece, forged and adorned by the hands of her lover, was tucked inside her stays. The piece itself was beautiful, with direwolves running through a weirwood forest. Gendry had never seen a heart tree, let alone a direwolf, but he had depicted all of them entirely just out of hearing the tales of her home, while they enjoyed the afterglow of their couplings. 

Arya had never cared for the romantic ballads that her sister Sansa loved, but every night, when she was alone in her bed, and she would pull out the metal busk to run, once more, her finger pads over the engravings, she thought that that was what poetry ought to make one feel. 

With one hand on her belly, Gendry guided Arya to lower herself, sowing kisses along her spine. Arya wished she could feel his mouth on her bare skin, and not just the faint feeling of his lips over the silk, but then, when he reached the back of her neck, moving her hair aside, his kisses had been molten steel, and if she didn't know better, she would have sworn they would leave scars. 

Gendry's hands traveled to the exposed skin of her backside. He had seen her completely bare many times now, under him, and above, while she rode him, and yet, the look of her pale backside bared only for him, with her skirts hiked up, and still wearing her riding boots was making him harder than he had ever been. He rubbed both hands over her soft globes, enthralled by the way his caresses made her shudder. His hands played with her, traveling down to the juncture with her thighs, and then, they came back up, on the inside of her legs, dangerously close to her lower lips. He couldn't see it, but he was sure Arya was using her hands to muffle her moans, and he felt both the richest man and the greediest of bastards. 

"Do you like it when I touch you like this?" He asked, and his voice surprised him, with its roughness. 

Arya looked back over her shoulder, and instead of answering, she let out a deep groan, with her eyes telling him exactly how much she liked it. Gendry squeezed her flesh tightly in his hands, leaving imprints of his finger pads.

"So pretty," he said, bending over and placing a kiss on her ass.

Gendry felt stupid, using a word that felt too small for her, too common. He didn't have words worthy of describing what he felt when he saw her like that, when she peaked around him, in his meager cot. 

He shook his head, frustrated with his lack of language to convey what he wanted to say, and instead, he kissed her again, once on each cheek and then on each dimple on her lower back. After that, Gendry dragged the tip of his nose over the silken cloth until he reached her nape, nibbling her neck as he rubbed his cock against her slit once, twice, three times, until their combined wetness led him inside.

Impatient as he had always known her to be, she moved one hand from the table to reach backward and grabbed hard at his buttock, pulling him against her, and making him enter her with less finesse than he had planned. 

Both groaned in unison, him in a mixture of lust and frustration. 

"Can I fuck you the way I want to, or are you going to do all the work yourself?"

"If you are going to dilly dally like we have all the time in the world, I'll take the lead."

He withdrew abruptly, and she turned to scold him for being too sensitive at her comments, but then he thrust in, with vigor, making her yip in surprise, and then moan lewdly at the way his hips pushed a bit more in a circular motion. As her eyes half-closed in pleasure, she saw the cheeky smile and the twinkle in his eyes. 

"You were saying?"

"Idiot," she responded, berating half-heartedly but pushing back. 

He dipped his head once more to her neck, and he took a deep breath of the woodsy scent of her hair. 

Despite his previous display, he started a gentle rhythm as his fingers moved under her skirts and blindly searched for her little bud, spreading her folds until he found it. 

"Do you like that, _love_?"

Arya only nodded, not trusting she'd have any voice left. It was more than the dance of his rough finger pads on her core and the almost unbearable feeling of him filling her, carving himself space within her. It was that Gendry always called her ' _love'_ only when he was buried in her flesh. 

They had never talked about feelings, but since the first time the word escaped his lips as he took her, Arya had come to crave it, the feeling of all her hard edges softening in his embrace. She doubted Gendry realized he called her' _love'_ while they fucked. But she treasured it as a secret that belonged only to her.

"Tell me you like it," he pressed on, too greedy to take in only the delicious sounds she made. "Tell me you want me as much as I want you."

"It's not enough that you have me bent over your work table, and you're buried inside me?"

"No, I'm a greedy bastard," he mumbled against her back.

"I don't _like_ it," she teased and felt him lose his pace. "I love the way you feel, and I oft think of you inside me just like this in my embroidery lessons."

"You do?"

Arya nodded. 

"I think about you all the time."

"Like this?" he asked as he gave one deep thrust.

Arya groaned and nodded enthusiastically. Once she recovered a bit, she said, "like that, and in other ways."

"What other ways?" Gendry asked, losing his pace, but Arya's hand reached back and encouraged him to continue, squeezing one firm buttock. 

"Like when you tell me how making the steel sing makes you feel," she gasped.

Gendry bent as much as he could, without severing their contact. He nibbled her ear and then said, "I think about you, too, all the time."

"Like this?" she teased, clenching around him and throwing his own words back at him.

"Oh, yes, pretty much only like this."

Arya swatted at him, making both of them laugh.

"You know it's not just like this," he admitted, between thrusts. "A lot like this and some variants when I go to bed, but I think about your eyes a lot as well, the way they go wide when you have a sword in your hand. I daydream all the time about making your eyes widen like that as you hold a sword made by me."

Her moan and tightening around him let Gendry know that she was pleased with what he had shared. There was no more talking after that, only gasps and sighs and grunts. Gendry's thrusts picked up speed, and Arya's feet would lose contact with the ground, forcing her to brace herself with her forearms on the table. 

"Gendry," she pleaded, with her thighs shaking at the effort.

He sensed her need and brought both hands to the sides of her legs, and he slid them to the front, hooking his fingers on her inner thighs, squeezing hard and lifting her, so she was no longer trying to keep herself up.

"Brace yourself on my legs," he groaned, on her neck.

Arya's feet moved backward, hooking them on the back of his knees, letting him hold up her weight. The change in the angle got him deeper with each stroke. Arya's little pants rewarded Gendry, and he couldn't stop his right hand coming to the collar of her silk gown, supporting her weight on his hips. His fingers dipped under the silk, and under the edge of her stays, and he groaned in frustration when he barely brushed the swell of her teat. He could hardly contain himself from ripping the silk apart so that he could have her nude. The thin thread of reason kept him from doing it, and instead, held on tight to the layers of fabric in his clutch. He had to keep the clothes on her, but his hand slid to her shoulder and, he managed to pull the gown off of it and reveal the strap of her stay. His clumsy fingers pulled at the tie, unraveling the bow, and he was able to draw down the side of the stays and shift enough to free one nipple. His hand collected on his reward, cupping the teat and playing with its peak with his thumb and forefinger. 

Arya's hips started moving in circular motions as if searching for something. Gendry could feel her need, and the hand clutching hard on her inner thigh moved up until it was cupping her mound, and two fingers spread her folds, first feeling the base of his cock flushed against her entrance, and then, exploring until they found, once more, her delicate bud. A low moan let him know his caresses were more than welcome, and he continued to tease it, as well as he could while he thrust erratically.

Arya's heart seemed to grow in her chest every time she felt him getting close to his release, and he plunged into her with such force, she was convinced it was this what earned the nickname of _'bull'_ and not his stubbornness.

"Are you close?"

"Almost there," she replied, feeling herself just about to fall.

"Let go, _love_."

The term of endearment was enough to make her shatter.

Gendry felt her spasms, and knowing he couldn't hold it any longer, he attempted to pull out as he always did, but Arya's hand clutched his ass hard, keeping him inside.

"Don't spill on my gown! Do it inside!"

Against his better judgment, he did as she commanded and felt the overwhelming wave of pleasure pull him deep. 

They stayed joined, riding the aftershocks that made them thrust and clench a handful of times. Most of Gendry's weight was over her back, bracing himself only with one hand on the table. His senses seemed to work once more, as he felt the vibrations on his chest. They increased until Arya turned her face to the side, and he was able to hear her unbridled laughter. 

It was infectious, and he felt himself joining in. 

"A lesser man would feel humiliated if the woman he just fucked laughed afterward."

"Thank the gods you are not a lesser man," Arya said, pulling the hand that was next to her head to her lips, and she kissed his knuckles.

Gendry rose, to relieve her from his weight, but he kept himself inside her, still.

"So, the laughter is not because it was bad?"

"Quite the opposite," she said, turning her face as far back as it would go, let him see the sincerity in her eyes. Gendry felt the air leave his lungs, seeing her like that, looking at him with soft eyes and flushed cheeks, a few wispy hairs that had escaped her braids stuck to her face with sweat and her bright red lips smiling wide. Her stays were still pulled down, baring a teat, and her skirts hiked up, revealing the pale skin of her ass, tight against him. 

The image made him want to kiss her senseless, but he could feel himself rapidly softening inside of her. 

"I'd kiss you now, but I don't want to dirty your clothes."

"Here," she said, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve.

Gendry took it from her and cleaned her once he withdrew. He stepped back, and Arya turned around and started setting her clothes to rights. 

Gendry observed her as he pulled his breeches up and tied them. 

"I shouldn't have spilled inside you."

"I'll drink moon tea," she said, trying to reassure him.

"What if it doesn't work?"

Arya shrugged. 

"If it doesn't work, then my father will have to ask the king to have you marry me."

Gendry's eyes opened wide, and he swallowed, scaring Arya for a moment. 

"Is marrying me that scary?"

"No!" he yelled, pulling her into his arms. "Not at all. Before, when you tricked me into thinking that you were a kitchen servant and not a highborn lady, I went to Master Mott and told him I would ask you to marry me."

"Well, don't get stupid. I still don't want to marry, but I will marry _you_ if needs be."

At that moment, Gendry knew he was truly gone for the girl that perplexed him and infuriated him as much as she enticed him and made his heart flutter.

"Why would you let me do this if you don't want to marry?" he asked a bit more vexed than he had intended.

"It's not the same thing," she explained, with those doe eyes of hers, looking up from her place against his chest, laughing at him just as if what she was saying was obvious.

" _It will be_ if I just planted my bastard in you," Gendry countered.

"It won't be a bastard if they have us marry."

"It _will_ be if your lord father decided he would rather geld and kill me."

"He won't. I wouldn't let him."

"What will you do if you have to marry me? I wouldn't want you to be tied to me if you don't want to," he asked, afraid of her answer.

"I won't marry a stupid lordling, so if we have to marry, you're not allowed to become one."

Gendry let out a belly laugh. 

"You're a highborn lady who likes to bed dirty bastard smiths."

"No, I only like bedding _you_ , stupid."

"Good," he replied before claiming her lips. "I like that."

* * *

Arya made sure every hair was perfectly braided and all her clothing put to rights before she left, leaving Gendry with a kiss and a promise to come back whenever she could escape. 

Arya would be lying if she said that she wasn't nervous as her lady mother helped Sansa and her out of their stays that night, and she sighed with relief when her mother didn't find anything amiss with her clothing. 

It was only when she turned around to put on her nightshirt that she heard her mother's gasps.

"Arya, whose fingerprints are those on your thighs?!"

Looking down, she could see the perfect shape of Gendry's fingers, staining her pale skin in violet bruises. 

The unexpected fit of laughter surprised the three women in the chamber: Sansa's bewildered look, with her hand on her mouth, her mother's horrified stare, looking at her septa for answers, and Septa Mordane's, shaking her head, realizing she had utterly failed at her task.

Mayhaps, the biggest surprise had been her own reaction when her belly fluttered at the realization that she would have to marry her blacksmith bull, who called her _'love'_ while he fucked her. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Gendry and Arya being caught by her lady mother by the fingerprints he left on her thighs. If you wondered how Arya's parents and the king reacted, this is the chapter to read. There will be flashbacks to how they first got together. (There will be a third part posted after this one.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: I finished this!  
> Bad news: I had to split it into two parts, so here is part 1, and part 2 should be posted tomorrow when I finish proofreading it. 
> 
> Just a quick note, these two parts go past and present, so whenever you see extra breaks it signals a flashback.
> 
> Thank you for your continued interest in this story!

Something was wrong.

Gendry knew it the moment he saw Arya at the entrance of the smithy. 

After all, she never came in through the front, not since they started fucking, at least, and after he learned her true identity.

Seeing her there, standing at the entrance, took Gendry back to the day she showed up for the first time, wearing a dress with oil and food stains, the same one that had caused him to mistake her for a kitchen servant. 

____

Back then, Gendry hadn't paid attention to her, barely a slip of a girl, and instead, he had gone back to work the bellows, convinced that by ignoring her, she would leave him alone, like all those other ones before, who had been curious when the king had brought him to the castle.

But she had done quite the opposite.

The girl had come inside uninvited and looked around at the pieces hung on the wall, the barrel of ore, and the pile of castle guard swords that needed mending. 

Gendry did not recognize her, and her brazen disregard of how obviously she was not welcomed in the smithy made him wonder if mayhaps she was one of the servants that had arrived from the North with the new Lord Hand. 

As he continued his work, grunting louder, hoping to drive her away, she went on with her perusal of his tools, unashamedly undisturbed by his rudeness.

"Unless you have a blade under your skirts that you want me to look at, you better fuck out of here," he finally roared.

Rather than blushing and fleeing, as he expected, the girl knitted those expressive eyebrows of hers and said, "Why would the blade be under my skirts?"

Gendry had been unprepared for her comeback. He had expected the mention of looking under her skirts to intimidate her, instead.

"Well… I don't know. You have no scabbard to hold a sword. It doesn't look like many places to hide a knife," Gendry replied, scratching his jaw.

She seemed to think for a moment, pursing her lips, and then she countered, "What about under my sleeve?"

"What?"

"Or in my hair?"

He stopped working the bellows, resigned to the fact that he would not get any work done as long as the girl remained in the smithy.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," he said, shaking his head.

" _For me to hide a blade_ ," she replied with knit eyebrows, like her train of thought was evident, and Gendry was just too dense to understand it.

Only when Gendry nodded, she continued, "One of my brothers told me once about a pirate who was known to hide a small blade under his tongue. But then again, I don't think that type of blade would be one to try to mend. I'm sure it was meant as a one-time weapon."

"What in seven hells are you talking about?!" Gendry inquired, unable to stop a chuckle.

She had only shrugged and continued, “You're the one who brought up where I could be hiding a blade, stupid!"

____ 

Standing in front of him, at the entrance of the smithy, Arya didn't wear servant clothes, like she had all those moonturns before. She had stopped doing it when she figured out she could just sneak in the back without anyone noticing. But it wasn't just that she was standing at the smithy entrance and that her big doe eyes were wide what had tipped Gendry about something being amiss. It was also that she was not alone, as the Lord Hand was with her, and an angry-looking highborn lady who Gendry was sure couldn't be anyone else but her mother. Lord Stark looked solemn, too solemn to confront the sorrowful bastard he surely just recently learned had dishonored his daughter.

Dishonored her _repeatedly_ , no less.

Gendry did not doubt that he was about to be gelded or killed. 

Or both. 

But taking another look towards Arya and admitting to himself that their encounters had been far more than just fucking, he made peace with his rapidly approaching end, pleased to have had the blessing of sharing all those stolen moments with her.

Gendry opened his mouth to apologize, but then, the booming voice of the fat drunk who called himself king and planted Gendry in his mother's belly beat him to it.

"You got your Stark girl, didn't you? You cheeky boy!" Robert Baratheon bellowed, walking into the smithy. 

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Ned, Cat, but the boy has my blood, and us Baratheon men know what we want: fierce Northern women like your dear sister, Ned. And this one here," the king said, looking with increased interest towards Arya, "she is like _my_ Lyanna come again."

Jealous rage at the way his father looked at the woman he loved distracted Gendry from his shame. But as if Gendry's humiliation was not enough, the king put his arm around him as he turned to face Arya and her parents, who had followed the king inside.

"Your Grace," Lady Stark complained, "please, keep your voice down, we don't need the whole castle to know of Arya's… _predicament_."

"Oh, don't look so sad, Cat. No one's died here."

_'Yet,'_ Gendry thought to himself.

"Robert," Ned Stark called but said nothing after that, only closing his eyes and pursing his lips as if remembering something.

"Oh, we'll take full responsibility, Ned. No need for you to look so somber. We'll have to join our houses, no more excuses about our children being too young. You will not make me wait on this one the way you did to become my hand. The gods only know you should have been here from the beginning," the king ranted. "I told you before; our families were always meant to join."

Despite it all, Gendry felt a rush at hearing the king talk about the possibility of finally getting the chance to wed his woman properly and bedding her without shame. 

"Well, surely, no one thought it would happen _this way_ ," Catelyn Stark added, deflating Gendry's excitement.

_'Yes, surely not with the bastard son, but with one of noble birth,'_ Gendry thought.

"Nonsense, I've recognized my boy here, and to make you feel better about this, Cat, I'll grant him the Baratheon name. Our dearest Arya can't be marrying a Waters."

Gendry never considered himself a _Waters_. He never thought himself anything else than Gendry, the bastard smith. Being a Waters meant a higher station that he had been born into, after all. But he guessed that once the king pulled him out of Flea Bottom and brought him into the Red Keep, it meant that Waters was his surname. He had given him his own smithy for the small price of posing with a war hammer whenever his so-called father needed to show off how he looked in his prime to any of the guests he entertained–fuck if Gendry knew what had happened to the previous smith. 

"Your Grace," Gendry spoke but was interrupted by the king.

"None of that, son. You should call me, _Father_."

Gendry could not stop himself from huffing, wondering where this ‘ _father'_ was when his mother passed away, and he almost died in the streets of Flea Bottom. 

"I want to apologize to Lord and Lady Stark, _Father_. It was not proper what I did, taking advantage of Arya like that."

With his eyes down as he spoke, Gendry chanced to look up from time to time to see Arya's parents' reaction. Lord Stark had a severe but calm face, and his wife seemed to remain undecided between wanting to cry or throttling Gendry. 

"As I said, you are a Baratheon, through and through," the king was quick to add, undoing everything Gendry had tried to achieve with his apology.

"It's not _that_ , my lord, my lady," Gendry tried again. "It was not proper. I am truly sorry."

"Oh, shut up!" Arya yelled, getting everyone's attention. "He didn't take advantage of me!"

"Arya," Gendry called, just to be interrupted again.

"Am I wrong?" she asked him, leaving him speechless.

"Arya," her mother said then, "are you going to pretend you haven't been… _having relations_ with him? After I found his fingerprints on your thighs?"

_'Oh, that,'_ Gendry thought, learning what had been their downfall.

"Yes!" she admitted, throwing her arms in the air. "We've been _fucking_ for a handful of moonturns, but Gendry did not take advantage of me."

"Arya, please, language," her mother chided her, though the king chuckled.

"It was me who took advantage of him!"

"Arya, please stop," Ned said, grimacing.

____ 

Arya knew from the beginning that the young blacksmith did not want her in his forge. 

She would have left if he had simply asked her, but instead, he had huffed and groaned. He had been rude in every way he could, but the only thing he had not done was ask her directly to leave. What the smith had done instead was throw out an indirect comment about the low possibility of Arya hiding a sword under her skirts that she wanted him to look at. 

If Arya had been her sister Sansa, or her friend Jeyne, she would have blushed and run out of the forge, but alas, she was not, and instead, she said the first thing that came to mind. 

If he wanted her gone, he was going to have to spell it out. 

He didn't order her out directly that afternoon, not any of the following seven times she made her way to the smithy, each one after changing into clothes that she traded with servants or stolen from the laundresses. Septa Mordane kept scolding her because, by the time she switched back into her clothes, they would be dirty or torn at the hems, and her septa had to spend long hours mending them. At least those first days, she still wore simple dresses or the clothes of which Bran had grown out, and Arya had sneaked all the way to King's Landing in her trunks. 

That first sennight, she had asked all the questions, watching the young smith as he worked. He would ignore her or grunt monosyllabic answers. The second sennight, though, she had learned that his name was Gendry, and she had given Arry as hers. He also started to respond to her smithing questions, from how hot the fires needed to be to all the different swords he had seen as an apprentice to master Mott. Gendry had described broad swords, longswords, bastard swords, and even one lone Braavosi rapier, which had made Arya excited, but she didn't disclose she had one of her own, buried at the bottom of her trunks. Gendry also told her about all the Essosi swords Master Mott had described to him. Even though he had never seen them before, he had them sketched in parchment out of Mott's accounts. Arya had particularly liked the way his eyes seemed to twinkle as he shared that he dreamed that one day he would get to see them all in person.

"I have the sketches of those exotic blades in my room in the back. I can show them to you if you want to go back there," Gendry had said absentmindedly.

He had not been prepared to see the quick blush blooming on Arry's cheeks, and for the first time, her eyes looked down, hiding them from him. Gendry had stuttered after that, feeling his own cheeks burning. He had quickly turned around, suddenly too interested in the bellows. 

"Ah... Thank you," Arya had quickly said, jumping off the workbench and rushing out of the smithy. "I'm sure they're looking for me. I'll see you another time."

Gendry stayed there, bewildered and wondering why suddenly they had both felt so self-conscious. It was at that moment that he realized that the annoying girl had burrowed her way into his heart… and other places down south.

The next time Arry came to the smithy, they had acted like nothing had happened, but Gendry's tongue seemed to get loose. He would talk at length about how satisfying it was to bang on steel to shape it, hearing it sing. He had confessed that smithing allowed him to let go of the many ways in which life had fucked with him, if not allowing him to forget, at least, leaving him exhausted enough that he'd fall asleep as soon as he made it to his cot.

Arya liked it when Gendry spoke of his thoughts and feelings, and she suspected that what he confided in her, he had never shared with another soul. It was ironic since, in the first days, it was she who had talked at length. But then, there were days, whenever she had to bid him farewell, and her voice came out rough, that she would realize she had not said anything else, mesmerized with the tales he told. 

That was the thought that made her aware of her own feelings. Back home, in Winterfell, her father's men would joke about her curious mind and her loose tongue. Arya had always known there were no stupid questions, just stupid people that would rather keep to themselves their ignorance out of fear of sounding simple. She learned plenty about how a castle worked, and all the different servants needed to keep it running because of her curious mind, after all.

One night, as she tucked herself into her featherbed, she realized that the last handful of days, she had been content with just hearing Gendry, her smith, talk. She no longer could ignore the way butterflies fluttered in her belly whenever she sneaked out of her highborn world to visit him in the forge and how it would get more and more challenging to say goodbye to him every time she had to go back.

Not to mention the way she had blushed so fiercely the moment he had brought up going to the room in the back. 

But despite the realization, Septa Mordane had scolded her when she couldn't find her anywhere for embroidery time and for saying something rude in the presence of her sister and other highborn ladies. She had to stay in her rooms four whole days, leaving only for embroidery and supper. She had been forbidden even to attend her dancing lessons with Syrio Forel, which should have been the worst of all, but it turned out that while it was torture to miss her training with the First Sword of Braavos, she found herself longing more to spent time with the young, strong smith. 

Four long days later, she finally made her way to the smithy. On that fifth day, she arrived at the forge earlier than she had ever made it there when barely the first rays of dawn were shining, and she found her friend in the surliest of moods. Gendry was more furious than on that first day when she had gone into his forge, and he had tried with all his might to kick her out, save from ordering her directly. 

Arya's broad grin had fallen when he looked up from working the bellows, and instead of greeting her, he had gone back to his task, completely ignoring her. 

"What got up your arse for you to be in such foul mood?" she had spat out, unable to contain herself. 

Gendry grunted and continued his work.

"Don't you know how _stupid_ you look?" she pressed on. "You are in such a bad mood that you only need smoke coming out of your nostrils to look like a real bull."

That had been the last drop.

"Why would you even fucking care about that?!" he yelled, looking up from the fires, and letting go of the bellows.

His reaction caught her off-guard and made her take one step backward.

"I'm just a _stupid bastard smith_ who does nothing but bang on steel day and night, right? Why would it even matter if I am in a foul mood?"

Arya had looked down then and mumbled to herself, _'it would matter to me,'_ but Gendry had been too enthralled in his tirade to hear her.

"What do you expect?!" he continued his ranting as he approached her, ripping his apron off, "That I'm going to be here waiting for you like I have nothing else to do and suddenly get all cheery because you decided to show up? I'm sorry my attitude is not to your liking, no one is forcing you to come or to stay, so I suggest you go back to your chores before someone starts missing you."

_'…before someone starts missing you…'_

His words hit her hard, square on the jaw, and she had to look away, to still the angry tears threatening to spill at the implication that he had not missed her at all. 

Arya ground her teeth and tensed her jaw, and once in control, she turned back to yell, "I'll go wherever _the fuck_ I want to go, and you are a stubborn, sullen arse who will lose his only friend because you are too stupid to see what's in front of you!"

"Oh, you are _my friend_ now?" he questioned her, walking menacingly towards her.

"I am, you idiot!" she cried, standing her ground. "But not for long if you continue to yell at me like this!"

"Well, _friend_ , I guess you are only my friend when you are too bored with _fuck_ knows what you've been doing these past five days, and then you only come here to bother me and prevent me from finishing my work! But I guess you think everyone can just be as _lazy_ as you!"

"Why do you call me lazy?!"

"Well, you spent so much time here, I'm sure you are not doing much anywhere else," he spat out.

It was Arya's turn to approach him menacingly, puffing her chest, like she could look larger than she actually was.

"You don't know anything about me!"

"I know you are _a huge pain in my arse_!"

That had incensed Arya, and it had prompted a long tirade full of expletives, some that Gendry had never heard before, and he briefly wondered if it was because they were exclusive to the North. 

Gendry was tired of it, of feeling furious and hopelessly missing her. Suddenly he wondered why he had picked a fight with her when he had missed her so. All of a sudden, she was there, just inches away from him, cheeks bright red, her grey eyes open and glowing with passion, and her perky teats heaving almost close enough to touch his own chest. 

He tried to interrupt her, to apologize, and say that yes, he was a stupid arse for being so mad at her because she had not come around, and he had missed her so desperately. When it was clear that there was no way to get her to stop her rant, he did the only thing that would silence her: he pulled her by the hips, and he kissed her clumsily but passionately. At first, Arya had punched him in the chest when she had enough time to realize what was happening. The hand on her hip moved to her lower back, so gently, as Gendry mumbled an apology to her lips, that Arya soon forgot why she was mad in the first place. 

Neither of them had experience in kissing, but what they lacked in finesse, they made up with genuine passion. Arya and Gendry kissed sloppily until they needed to breathe again, and when they parted, Gendry kept his forehead against hers while they inhaled deeply until they had once more enough air in their lungs to speak.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out then, looking into her eyes.

"For kissing me?" Arya asked, with those huge grey eyes of hers, looking like a scared doe's.

"No!" Gendry replied quickly. "I really liked _that_ ," he confessed, and he felt the blush was down to his neck.

"Then, why, stupid?" she asked with a smile, so broad and beautiful that he bit his lower lip and stole a second kiss, much too shorter than their first.

Whispering against her mouth, he admitted, "For being such an arse and yelling at you without a good enough reason."

Arya's thumb brushed his jaw, emboldened by their kisses.

"Why did you do it, then?"

Gendry shrugged, and raising his hand to her cheek and brushing her swollen lower lip with his thumb, he responded, "because I missed you too much, and I thought you had finally gotten sick of me."

"You're right," she replied, looking serious, and making him worry for a second, but she soon added, "you are a _stupid arse_ for thinking I could tire of you. I was scolded for sneaking for so long, and I couldn't come before."

"You really wanted to come to see me?" he asked, the child-like amazement in his face as he spoke, melting her heart.

"I did. I even came here as soon as I woke up today, happy to see y—"

She couldn't say anything else because he was soon kissing her with renewed passion. 

Words were not needed then, as they frantically embraced, and he walked her back until they bumped against the workbench where Arya would perch herself day after day. 

They only separated when some milkmaids walked outside of the forge, hauling large buckets full to the brink with milk. One of them scolded a young girl because she was spilling it all over the ground.

They pulled apart, scared that the yelling was about them, but when they realized no one had caught them yet, they laughed with massive silly grins they couldn't wipe from their faces. 

Only after they stopped laughing, and they were able to school their aching faces from smiling too much, Arya spoke, " _I'd like to see them now_."

After speaking, she had bit her lower lip, distracting Gendry by the way her lip was caught between her teeth that he didn't quite catch her meaning. 

"See what?" he finally asked, absentmindedly, and then he immediately said, "don't do that," pulling her lip free with his thumb. 

"Your sketches... The ones you keep in your room... In the back?” Arya forced herself to say, despite the bright crimson that tinged her cheeks.

Gendry's eyes widened comically, remembering the time he had brought it up innocently, but most of all, he recalled both their reactions, which were not innocent at all.

"Hmm," she mumbled after a deep breath. "Of course, only if you _wanted_ to show them to me."

"I can't leave the fires going here and the door open," he explained, scratching the back of his neck.

"No, it wouldn't be wise," Arya agreed. "If someone came in, they could be concerned, seeing the fires and the smith gone."

"They might go looking..." Gendry added.

Arya felt her hopes sank inside her chest, starting to doubt that she had interpreted his reaction correctly. 

But Gendry's arms wrapping around her waist once more and pulling her back to him interrupted her self-deprecating train of thought.

"Mayhaps..." he said.

"Mayhaps what?" Arya asked, hopeful once more and leaning in for a new kiss.

When she pulled away, Gendry kept his eyes closed and said, "Mayhaps I could let the fires die and-"

"Close the door?" she interrupted him eagerly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm sorry for stopping here. The chapter was becoming a mammoth, and it was getting hard to manage. The next part is longer, and it includes smut.
> 
> It won't take long to post, I promise. It is all written, and it only needs the last pass of proofreading.
> 
> Thank you for all your support, I hadn't planned to write more, but your enthusiastic response got my imagination going.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened when Gendry took Arya to his backroom to show her his sketches, and then they completely forgot about them. Also, the resolution between the king, the Starks, and Gendry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. I'm posting it before I chicken out.
> 
> It ended up being a bit fluffier at the end, but I want to believe you won't mind.
> 
> So, here it is, and I'll bury my face under my pillow while you read.

Gendry didn't show her the sketches. 

After dousing the fires and securing the front door, they went back to desperate kissing, bumping into tables and walls, as they walked blindly until they were in the small room that held Gendry's narrow cot and small table. As soon as Arya closed that second door, Gendry had her back against it, bending down to her height to claim her mouth again. His big blacksmith hands got more and more daring with each kiss, palming her form over her dress, from her hips to her teats. When the crick in his neck was too painful to ignore, Gendry held on to her thighs to lift her high enough to kiss her freely. Arya held on with arms and legs to Gendry's delight, who couldn't stop grinning against her lips, his glee becoming infectious. Once they sobered up, they stayed like that, looking into each other's eyes, close enough that the warmth of their breath caressed each other's lips.

Gendry kept Arya up with his hands on her thighs, under her dress, which had hiked up when he lifted her, and his groin sat comfortably in between her legs. Arya tilted her pelvis tentatively, making Gendry moan against her skin.

"Are you sure?" he whispered with his lips still on the crook of her neck.

Arya nodded and kissed him again. 

Gendry moved them both to his cot, laying Arya down and crawling over, making sure to keep his weight off of her.

"I've never done this," she confessed.

"Neither have I."

Arya's eyes widened.

"Why?"

"Why haven't _you_?"

Arya huffed and answered, "You know it's not the same."

Gendry shrugged. 

"I never wanted to bring more bastards into the world, and…"

"And?"

"I never had any interest before."

Arya liked the answer, but she liked more Gendry's bashfulness as he gave his reasons that she could not stop herself from kissing him again. As the kiss progressed, Arya felt a tentative hand move from her arm to her shoulder and then behind her, searching for the ties that crisscrossed the back of the simple dress she wore. She couldn't stop the way her lips curled with anticipation, and she lifted herself onto her forearms to aid Gendry in his task. 

When the bow was undone, Gendry's long fingers dipped in between the cords, loosening them to lower the collar enough to bare a shoulder. Letting go of her lips, he trailed kisses down her jaw, and then her neck, until he could reach the terse skin he had just revealed. After enough time worshiping the rounded shoulder, Gendry pulled back a bit, and searching for her eyes, he seemed to ask a question. Arya felt a swirl of butterflies in her belly as she nodded a bit more eagerly than she would have hoped. 

Gendry held on to the edge of the collar, and he pulled it down, baring the swell of a teat. He was mesmerized with the sight of the pale skin, but before he finished uncovering it, he looked up, and the intensity of his eyes, searching for hers, made Arya even more self-conscious than him looking at the naked swell of her breast. Gendry's blue eyes were but a rim around the black coal of his irises. Arya felt the heat on her cheeks, and she couldn't stop biting her lower lip, which in turn made Gendry smile. He didn't break eye contact, not even when Arya felt the last pull to the dress, and suddenly, a cool breeze enveloped her nipple. The rush made her sigh, and only then, Gendry's eyes lowered to the rosy peak that tightened the moment she knew he was looking at it. 

"May I?" Gendry asked, looking back at her.

Arya nodded her consent and looked as Gendry cupped her teat almost reverently, moving his thumb only after he seemed to have confirmed that his touch was welcomed. His other hand pulled the dress more, prompting Arya to free her arms, and then he cupped the other teat. Gendry's thumbs grew bolder, and they brushed the dusty pink of her areolas first, and then, with each new brush, he inched closer and closer until he was caressing her stiff nipples. A low moan came out of Arya's mouth, which both surprised and embarrassed her, but the way Gendry's eyes had gone back to hers, wide with amazement, and the way his tongue had wet his lips stoked the fires that kept the dull ache in her lower belly simmering. Arya had liked how Gendry's mouth had felt on her as he kissed her, but now, she found herself wanting it exploring her as much as his hands were. 

"You're beautiful," he said with a rough voice.

"I'm not much to look at," Arya said out of instinct or habit. "My teats are on the smaller size."

Gendry's head shook.

"They're perfect," he declared, and if to make a point, he could not stop himself from taking her left breast in his mouth. 

Gendry's bold move caught Arya by surprise. While he probed her teat with his tongue, Arya felt a coil tightening impossibly hard in her belly. Her hand moved instinctually to the back of Gendry's head, and she found her fingers softly rubbing his scalp. Arya had seen babes fed at the breast, and while she knew men found a large bosom attractive, she had not given the act of sucking on a teat for pleasure enough thought. Gendry was busy exploring her, alternating between licking, kissing and sucking, and even giving a tentative bite. She liked the sensations he was eliciting, but she was more thrilled by the intimacy of having Gendry at her breast while she kept her hand on his nape.

"How does it feel?" she dared ask. 

Gendry growled, letting go of her nipple, bright red from his attention.

"You're delicious," he teased before taking the other one in his mouth. 

Arya let herself lie on the bed, resting her arms above her head and arching her back, offering more of herself for Gendry to feast on. 

In between licks, he asked, "how does it feel to _you?_ "

Arya closed her eyes, and she let the experience consume her.

"Sensitive, intimate, overwhelming…"

"Are those things good?" he asked, raising his head with concern.

Arya grinned, "they are, _stupid_."

A thought occurred to her then, and while she still played with the longish bits of coal-black hair at his nape, she asked, "Are yours sensitive too?"

Gendry pulled back a bit, and he knitted his eyebrows.

"I don't know, no one's ever licked mine."

Arya couldn't stop herself from giggling, and she forced him to sit back. She quickly kneeled on the cot, and holding on to the hem of his shirt, she slid it off. Gendry aided her willingly, a bit excited about what she had in mind. His chest was firm, with a light sheen of sweat from his previous work, and red from his excitement. Arya placed one hand where his heart would be, and with her thumb, she gave a tentative rub to his left nipple. She was pleased with how it contracted, even if the change was not as noticeable as hers. It encouraged her to do it again a couple of times, and then, looking at Gendry's eyes, she pinched it in between her thumb and index finger. 

"Ouch!" Gendry yelled, swatting her hand away.

"Don't be a baby. You've played enough with mine."

"I wouldn't say it's enough," he was quick to respond, and to make a point, he brought his hand to cup her left breast. 

Arya didn't wait, and she dipped her head and gave the nipple a quick lick, and then she sucked it into her mouth, swirling her tongue around it. Gendry must have liked it because his eyes closed, and he squeezed her teat harder. 

"You like it?"

"It feels nice, maybe not as sensitive as yours, but it's nice," he stopped himself, suddenly going quiet.

"What is nice?" She asked, lifting her head.

He blushed and, after stealing a quick kiss for courage, with his forehead on hers, he said, "That you want to do that to me."

Arya felt suddenly overwhelmed, by something that both tightened the coil in her belly and made her chest feel too full, like when tears of impotence betrayed her, and she tried hard to hide them. She got closer to him, climbing on his lap, and wrapping her arms tight around his head, trying to quell the emotions in her chest with clumsy passionate kisses that Gendry was only too keen to reciprocate. While they kissed, Arya's chest moved erratically, rubbing her sensitive nipples against the coarse hair of his chest. When Gendry growled into their kiss, she knew he liked the sensation as well. 

Gendry's hands found their way under her skirts again, and he took his time exploring, equally mesmerized by the softness of the skin of her inner thighs and the firmness of her legs. 

He pulled away for a moment to comment, "You have strong legs."

Arya smiled but couldn't keep her eyes away from his lips.

"I'm an excellent rider," she replied without much thought.

She wondered for a moment if the unplanned admission would reveal her true identity. Still, Gendry pulled her back into a searing kiss that made her forget all about her concern when her words seemed to have a whole different meaning for him. 

Gendry's wandering fingers reached her smallclothes, and they played with the fabric, learning her form blindly. Arya's sighs and gasps seemed to be guiding him, and once he started playing with the edge, she reached her limit. She pulled away from him and got off from the bed, only to see Gendry's panicked eyes, surely worried she had changed her mind. She couldn't stop blushing, and holding on to her dress, which clung only to the hips, she started pulling at it. 

"I haven't changed my mind. I just want to get out of my clothes."

Gendry's eyes softened, but he didn't say anything. He only stared at her with his lips parted. 

"Gendry?"

"Yes?" he said without moving his eyes from her bare teats.

"Are you just going to stare?"

"Is that an option?"

"Well, you could, or you could help me and undress yourself as well. You can always stare, but it would be quicker if you-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence because Gendry stood up and kissed her while his hands yanked gracelessly at the ties of her dress. 

The kiss grew sloppier, as the ties proved more intricate for what his hands, more suited for banging on steel, were capable of, and after a few minutes, he growled against her lips, taking hold of the two sides of the fabric.

"Don't you dare!" Arya yelled, pushing on his bare chest. "I'm not leaving this place naked nor wearing a torn dress."

Gendry came to his senses and added, "Well, tell me how to get you out of this thing!"

Arya laughed at his impatience, and turning around, leaning over Gendry's small work table, she said, "Here, it might be easier if you can see what you're doing."

She braced herself for Gendry's strong hands yanking hard at the laces, but she was not prepared when instead, he gently set them on either side of her naked back, and he lowered his head to drop an almost reverent kiss on her shoulder. 

Arya turned her face slightly to look as Gendry carefully set a trail of kisses all the way to her neck, and once there, he said, "Show me how to do it properly."

"I'm not wearing stays, stupid. Just undo the knot at the bottom."

"Bossy," he replied, punctuating it with a loud kiss to her neck, and he set to his task.

Arya soon felt as the gown became loose, and it slid down her body, pooling at her feet. She turned around, and without taking her eyes away from Gendry's, she reached the ties of her smallclothes at her hips, and after undoing them, she pulled them down her legs. 

"Go on, take off your breeches," she ordered.

Her voice pulled him out of his trance, and he quickly obeyed. Arya noticed he wasn't wearing any smallclothes, and she couldn't stop herself from staring and feeling her cheeks warming up at the sight of Gendry's nakedness.

He got closer to her, and after tilting her head up and bending to nuzzle her nose with his, he asked, "Are you still sure."

Arya did not want to give herself time to think. She wanted, instead, the coil in her belly to continue tightening. Instead of words, she pulled Gendry down to her lips, and she kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He picked her up and set her on his cot. He lay her on her back as he kneeled in between her legs. Arya couldn't take her eyes away from his erect cock. Growing up with her four brothers and Theon, she was no stranger to what boys looked like in the nude, but she had never seen one erect before. Septa Mordane had warned her and Sansa about what was to happen during their beddings. While she had intended to get them to know what was to come, it had also been to scare them enough from doing precisely what Arya was about to do. But despite the sudden nervousness that made her feel a swirl of butterflies in her belly, she only closed her eyes hard and brace herself, expecting Gendry to stick it inside her. Arya felt his hands slide up her legs until they reached the back of her knees, and he gently pulled them up and apart, opening her up. She tried to relax, intuitively knowing tensing up was the wrong thing to do, but it was hard not to. When the seconds stretched, and the pain didn't come, she braved, opening her eyes, only to see the top of Gendry's head with the mop of black hair, tousled from her own hands. 

"What are you doing?" she asked. 

"Just looking at you," he said, locking eyes with her.

"Stop that," she said, trying to cross her legs.

Gendry's hands kept their hold of them and stopped her. 

"No, don't. Let me look at you a bit more. I've never seen one up close."

"It's weird and ugly."

"No, it's lovely. _You_ are lovely," Gendry said, and then he lowered his head to press a kiss to the top of her mound, over the brown curls."

"Gendry," Arya said, suddenly feeling too self-conscious, but after his name left her lips, she didn't know what else to say, nor if she wanted him to stop or continue. 

Raising his head and spearing her with the intensity of his dark eyes, he asked, "Can I taste you?"

The look in Gendry's eyes hid no secrets, and despite how Arya was open to him, it seemed to her that it was Gendry the one who was the barest. It was that which prompted Arya to nod and to look for his hand. He let her leg rest to the side and held on to her hand as he lowered his head and kissed the way down, gently allowing his tongue to probe her slowly, checking in with his eyes, making sure not to spook her. Arya's leg jerked involuntarily at the contact, but Gendry caressed her thigh with his palm as he continued gently exploring with his tongue, which parted her lips slowly. The warm wetness of his kiss set up a searing wave that traveled north, tightening her nipples even more and tinging her cheeks crimson. Her free hand stretched to run her fingers through his hair, and Gendry purred his approval against her sensitive flesh. A funny feeling bloomed in the pit of her stomach as Gendry's tongue continued exploring her, unlocking sensations she never fathomed existed in her body. The sensations made her back arch, and her toes curl over Gendry's shoulders. Opening up her eyes, Arya found herself staring at the stained ceiling of the small room, wondering how wanton she looked, bare as her nameday, pushing her chest up and with her lover's head between her thighs. Her mind felt dizzy with her forbidden pleasures. 

Arya reached down to caress Gendry's face, making him look up, his blue stare peeking through his black hair. Gendry had never looked anything less than a man grown to Arya, but the softness of his eyes, peering at her from behind the brown curls of her mound, made him look young and vulnerable. 

Arya raised, supporting herself with her forearms planted on the bed, and called for him, "Come here."

Gendry raised himself and brushed his moist lips with the back of his hand, and then crawled over her body, leaving kisses here and there. He found his place in between Arya's legs, and Arya lowered herself back on the mattress, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down over her. His kiss was chaste at first, but then, the tip of his tongue nudged her lips, encouraging them to part. Arya gasped at her own taste in his mouth, and she blushed even more, making Gendry smile and laugh a bit at her reaction.

They kissed sloppily until they both had to stop to laugh with their foreheads together. After they calmed enough, Gendry's eyes opened, and they locked with Arya's. He nuzzled her nose with his, and, looking down, he saw the blush in between her pert breasts and tight nipples against his chest. His eyes grew darker, and he moved, his hardness evident against her. Arya felt the air leave her lungs, feeling his eyes on her. Her gasp got Gendry's attention back on her face and then locked on her lips, which he kissed just one more time with passion.

"Tell me to stop," Gendry sighed.

Arya's eyes opened wide at his words.

"Tell me to leave you alone, and I will leave."

Arya's arms let go of his neck, and her palms cradled his face, making him look at her.

"And why would I do that?"

Gendry allowed himself just one more kiss before speaking, "Unless you're sure, tell me no."

Arya's hands set on Gendry's broad shoulders, feeling their firmness, and she looked at him, desire darkening his eyes. A funny feeling bloomed in the pit of her stomach, taking in the significance of what she was about to do. Years of Septa Mordane's constant cautioning on the perils of giving away her maidenhead to a man that was not her husband suddenly flashed before her eyes. But despite her septa's attempts to scare her, the thought of saving herself for some lordling who wouldn't look at her the way Gendry did, repulsed her. 

Right then and there, she made her choice.

"And what if I am sure?" she asked, pushing herself up to capture his lips and to press herself tighter against him.

"Don't," he pleaded, but his lips continued nibbling hers. 

"Why?"

"Because I won't want you ever to leave my bed."

Arya's response was to hook her hand behind his head and pull him down for a kiss. Their squirming had them rubbing against each other, just the right way that had them moaning in unison. Gendry's cock slid once, twice, thrice against her sleekness, leaving them both tingling. The fourth time though, the angle changed slightly, and Gendry sank into her folds a bit. They both froze and looked into each other's eyes. 

Gendry scrunched up his eyes and apologized, "I'm going to be rubbish. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Arya said, cradling his face and nudging his nose with hers. "We can learn together."

It was all that he needed to hear, and he let himself sink further, halting his progress every time that Arya whimpered. It was a test of his patience and willpower. With every bit of headway, he'd have to stall and feel Arya slowly relaxing around him, her heat making it so enticing to chase his own pleasure. 

Gendry's slow advance felt like a pleasant discomfort. With every bit of progress gained, the aching pressure increased, and Arya would tense instinctually. They would stop and try to distract themselves from the contradictory impulses to halt and keep going with clumsy kisses. It seemed never-ending until the last push seemed to alight a ring of fire that had Arya holding on to his shoulders as tight as she could and whining against his lips. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he kept repeating, trying to retreat, but Arya kept him still, squeezing her legs around his lower back.

"Just stay still, for a moment."

Gendry pulled back, just enough to see her lids shut tightly. He kissed her lips, and her cheeks and her forehead, caressing her skin with his mouth, willing the pain he was causing to ease up as he tried hard to distract himself from the injustice of the same heated vise hurting her while for him, it was so deliciously enticing.

There was something so achingly intimate, not just in the way they were joint, or the irreversible transgression she had chosen to make. It was the way they were breathing each other's air, forehead to forehead, and keeping contact with lips and noses. 

Just as Gendry's willpower was about to wane, he felt Arya's pelvis tilting almost imperceptibly. Her hesitant movements invited him to move. He backed a bit and gave one slow, tentative thrust that Arya rewarded with a moan. Gendry was encouraged to try once more, and then again until he was well sheathed in her. Once they were perfectly joint, they took a moment to gather themselves and look into each other's eyes. They couldn't stop blushing grins that made their skin ache. Gendry cupped her chin and kissed her deeply, making her chase his lips when they parted. 

It took them some time to find their rhythm, experimenting with the cadence and the timing, at times erratic, until they hit the right place, and they moved against each other, in a dance that felt familiar like they had been doing it forever. It was a bit like their talks in the forge, their teasing banter, and their heated arguments. Taking turns pushing, stepping forward, and then backing up. Like sword-fighting as fluid as the water dance. 

Neither was shy to speak their mind, to praise a pleasurable movement, and to voice their discomfort when it wasn't. Their heartbeats picked up, and there was not enough breath to speak anymore, beyond grunting and gasping, and it soon was too much. 

"Wrap your legs around me, love," Gendry spoke like he had been saying the word all along. Arya stopped moving, looking at him to acknowledge what he had said, but Gendry seemed not to have noticed, with eyes shut tightly and a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Gendry tried hard to bridle his passion, and, damning his greenness, he accepted that he wouldn't be able to make her peak before him. A fleeting thought made him pray to the gods, the same ones he didn't believe in, that he'd get a second chance. He fought a losing battle until he couldn't anymore, and he pulled out, surprising Arya with the sudden loss of him and the unexpected feeling of his seed spilled on her belly. The coil that had been tightening so deliciously loosened, leaving her missing something she couldn't quite name yet but felt she wanted at her core to reach with Gendry's help. Arya was still trying to grasp exactly what had been lost when she was startled by Gendry wiping her skin with his shirt.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he muttered over and over, with his forehead on hers. 

Her hand came to his cheek to make him look at her, desperate to feel him there with her.

Once their eyes locked, his jittery wiping and apologizing stopped, and her look and smile pulled him back into the bubble where only the two of them existed. Nothing matter anymore, not his greenness, nor the hastiness of their union, only that they were there together, and they had seemed to discovered something magnificent.

Gendry captured Arya's lips with his and kissed her with the desperation of letting her know all the things he wanted to say, and even those he didn't couldn't yet put into words. Arya responded to the kiss, feeling once more overwhelmed by the man who looked at her like she hung the moon in a way no one ever had looked at her before. When his fingers made their way back to her folds, she had to gasp into the kiss. The same hands she had seen so skillfully work steel managed to tighten the coil again, setting her on a maddening chase. As if his fingers inside and outside of her weren't enough to make her mad with want, his mouth traveled south until it latched on her teat, nibbling and sucking her nipple until it couldn't become any tauter, and then he moved to the other. Arya blushed even more violently when she caught herself whimpering loudly. 

Gendry shushed her, coming back to nuzzle her and saying in between kisses, "It's fine, let go. Let go for me."

The coil snapped suddenly when Gendry said, "You're so beautiful like this."

Arya finally figured out what she had been chasing all along when Gendry's name got caught in her throat, and she swallowed it down, finally sated. 

Neither of them knew how long it took for them to come back to the world. Gendry's arm hooked on her side, and he pulled her against him, so they lay on their sides. The world around them became real, little by little, as they cuddled lazily until it was impossible to ignore that nothing had changed and their responsibilities were still there on the other side of the door. 

"I must go," Arya braved after a while.

"Just a little longer," he sighed on her ear, planting tingling kisses on her neck.

"I should go before anyone starts looking for us," she insisted, as she pulled herself from his arms until she sat upon his bed.

Gendry felt a piece of his heart ripping away as she left the cocoon of his arms. He observed her, bare, bending to pick up her discarded dress. He understood in that minute that she had seared herself inside of him and that what they had done in his room was far more than a quick coupling. He got up himself and pulled his breeches over his legs. When she turned around, cheeks still flushed and lips swollen from his kisses, it was hard not to drag her back into his arms and keep her with him forever. 

"Arry, I…" he started to say, not sure exactly what it was that demanded to be told.

She stretched herself on tiptoes and pulled him by the back of his neck into a quick kiss.

"Don't ruin it by being stupid," she said against his lips. "It was quite lovely."

"It was _more_ than that," he said, still with eyes closed.

Arya smiled against his lips and added, "I know. Now, help me with the ties."

She turned around, and Gendry's hand came to her waist. He stared at the strip of pale skin, and he couldn't stop himself from bending over to plant a kiss between her shoulder blades. Arya's hand came behind, and she rubbed the back of his head.

"Don't do this," she begged.

"Why?" he asked her skin.

"Because I need to go, and you're making me want to stay."

"Maybe _I_ want you to stay," he said, finally tightening the laces and making a quick bow.

Turning around and, arching her eyebrow, Arya said, "I'll be coming back, _stupid_ , but I really need to go now."

And after another quick kiss, she ran away, leaving him dumbfounded, but determined to make the bossy kitchen maid his wife.

____ 

Back from her memories, Arya stared at her mother, her lips moving as a fish pulled from the water, and she wondered if she had broken her for good.

"You took advantage of him?" Cat finally asked after a while.

"Yes!" Arya yelled at the same time that Gendry bellowed, "No!"

They stared at each other, and a whole conversation seemed to be exchanged between them just by the way their eyebrows moved.

The king continued cackling while Ned Stark let out an uncharacteristic growl.

Arya grunted in frustration and then asked Gendry, "Was it not me who came here every day, despite how much you didn't want me here in the first place?"

"Arya-" he started to complain, but she interrupted him.

"Answer the question!"

"Yes," he replied with frustration.

"Did you know who I was then?"

"No, I didn't."

"And why was that?"

Gendry grunted, forgetting for a moment that they were not alone.

"Because you came here dressed as a kitchen servant."

"So you did not know I was the daughter of the Lord Hand?"

"You know I didn't."

"When did you learn who I really was?"

"The night of the feast, when the ki-, _Father_ , introduced me to Lord Stark and his daughters."

"Where are you going with this, Arya?" her mother inquired.

"He didn't take advantage of me. It was _I_ who made him believe I was lowborn."

"It doesn't matter!" Catelyn yelled. "The deed is done, and you could be with child!"

"I'm not."

Catelyn stared at her daughter for a moment, and then she asked, "How can you be so sure?"

"We took measures."

"What kind of measures?"

"My lady," Gendry interrupted. "I really don't think you want to hear the answer to that."

Catelyn thought for a while as the king gave a knowing look and her husband grimaced.

"Fine, but no measure can be infallible. I'm not proud of how you went about with this, Arya, but I agree with his Grace, you will have to marry."

"Cat," her husband interrupted. "Let's take a moment first."

Walking towards Arya and setting a hand on his daughter's shoulder, he asked, "What do you want to do?"

Arya looked at her father, and a tear ran down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away.

She looked at Gendry and then at her father, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Gendry interrupted her before she could say anything.

"My lord, please, let me say something before. I was not innocent in all of this. Yes, I didn't know who Arya was initially, but that doesn't make what I did right. I fully knew who she was after the feast, and my behavior was not honorable. I don't want Arya to be forced to marry me just because this happened. I want you and your lady wife to know that the first time she left my bed when I still thought her to be a castle servant like me, I went to Tobho Mott, my master, before I was brought to the palace, and I told him that I had found the woman I wanted to marry."

Arya's eyes widened at the confession, and Gendry turned and walked towards her.

"Arry, _love_. I don't have anything to offer you, but I've dreamed of calling you my wife since the beginning. Marry me because I love you because I cannot stand any other person but you. Because I love your curiosity and your courage, and because I will spend the rest of my life loving you. But don't marry me because you are forced, and not as a punishment."

"Marrying the son of a king is far from a punishment!" The king bellowed. 

"Stay out of this!" Gendry yelled, astonishing the king, and leaving him speechless.

Arya walked towards Gendry, and she spoke, "Will you want me to wear fancy gowns and be a proper lady?"

Gendry huffed, "Not if you want to be in my smithy. But I have no problem if you want to wear those elaborate dresses from time to time, as long-"

"As long what?" Arya asked with one arched eyebrow.

"As long as I get to lace and unlace you."

Arya's mother let out a high pitch sound, her father's eyes opened wide, and the king chortled.

Arya jumped into Gendry's arms then, and after a long kiss, she said, "I accept your terms. Let's get married."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once more. Your support got me this far. I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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